Unseen Hollywood

In today’s world of instant information, not even a closed film set is a place of sanctity. It seems the second an actor loses their temper, recordings are immediately posted on websites, parodied on Family Guy and edited into comedy hip-hop tracks.

But it wasn’t always like this. Before camera-phones (and, in fact, before any kind of mobile phones), what happened on set, stayed on set. Until now, that is. Prior to becoming a film producer, Leo Fuchs was a freelance photographer who plied his trade on many of Hollywood’s biggest films during the Fifties and Sixties. He became friendly with iconic film stars, allowing him to capture candid moments of off-camera tomfoolery.

And, for the first time, the cream of these intimate images has been assembled for a new book of Fuchs’s work entitled — not entirely modestly — Leo Fuchs: Special Photographer.

The snaps are tantalising glimpses into a world where stars could act however they liked without worrying that they’d become a trending topic.

They can all be seen in Leo Fuchs: Special Photographer by Leo Fuchs, published by powerHouse books.